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Mavericks clinch RMAC title

Mesa State College clinched its fifth consecutive RMAC baseball championship Saturday, splitting a doubleheader at New Mexico Highlands.

After dropping the opener 10-4, the second-ranked Mavericks (37-8, 27-5 RMAC) rebounded with an 8-5 victory to move five games ahead of Highlands in the Mountain Division standings, clinching the season series by winning six of the seven games, with one to play.

CSU-Pueblo, which leads the Plains Division of the RMAC at 21-13, lost three in a row to Nebraska-Kearney this weekend and is out of the running for the No. 1 seed in the conference tournament in two weeks.

The Cowboys’ Gorman Romero shutout the Mavericks for four innings, then allowed only single runs in the fifth and sixth innings and two in the seventh to pick up his seventh win of the season in the opener.

“He stuffed us,” Mesa coach Chris Hanks said. “We didn’t get very good pitching, (Chris) Carma didn’t have a good start out of the get-go and we couldn’t get anything going, but the guys bounced back in game two. (Jason) Fronczak pitched well and Chris Shea threw well after him.”

It also helped that Craig Lanzarotta went 3 for 3 with a pair of home runs, driving in six runs in the second game.

The teams wrap up the series at noon today, and the Mavericks return home to play Colorado Christian on Friday and Saturday in the final series of the regular season.